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Building, measuring, and profiting from customer loyalty

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Abstract

Achieving customer loyalty is a primary marketing goal, but building loyalty and rea** its rewards remain ongoing challenges. Theory suggests that loyalty comprises attitudes and purchase behaviors that benefit one seller over competitors. Yet researchers examining loyalty adopt widely varying conceptual and operational approaches. The present investigation examines the consequences of this heterogeneity by empirically map** current conceptual approaches using an item-level coding of extant loyalty research, then testing how operational and study-specific characteristics moderate the strategy → loyalty → performance process through meta-analytic techniques. The results clarify dissimilarities in loyalty building strategies, how loyalty differentially affects performance and word of mouth, and the consequences of study-specific characteristics. Prescriptive advice based on 163 studies of customer loyalty addresses three seemingly simple but very critical questions: What is customer loyalty? How is it measured? and What actually matters when it comes to customer loyalty?

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Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for their guidance on this point.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) for their feedback and publication of a working paper of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, 4295 E. Stevens Way NE, MacKenzie Hall, Box 353226, Seattle, WA, 98195-3200, USA

    George F. Watson IV

  2. University of Cincinnati, 2925 Campus Green Dr., 106 Carl H. Lindner Hall, Cincinnati, OH, 4522-1106, USA

    Joshua T. Beck

  3. Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, 486 Lillis Business Complex, Eugene, OR, 97403-1208, USA

    Conor M. Henderson

  4. University of Washington, 4295 E. Stevens Way NE, 418 Paccar Hall, Box 353226, Seattle, WA, 98195-3200, USA

    Robert W. Palmatier

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  1. George F. Watson IV
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Table 7 Alphabetical list of studies
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Watson, G.F., Beck, J.T., Henderson, C.M. et al. Building, measuring, and profiting from customer loyalty. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 43, 790–825 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0439-4

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